the potential of genetics and archaeology

Scales and units of analysis Over the past forty years, a fascinating dialogue has been developing between archaeology and gene-tics, specifically in relation to the question of the dispersal of domesticated plants and animals into Europe and its relationship with the movements of human populations. This debate has often been mar-ked by a degree of mutual confusion, owing largely to the different temporal and spatial scales at which the two disciplines operate, and the different ques-tions that they address (Brown and Pluciennik 2001. 101). While genetics generally concerns itself with the global or continental scale, archaeology is often more focused on the regional and the local, with the result that phenomena that are described at differ